Ch-ch-ch-CHANGES

Miss Lila has been hard at work this week. I was in her room at school Friday and I happened to see her trying to PULL UP!! I'm SO not ready for this new phase! She was just sitting there looking all innocent when she grabbed the top of the toy and pulled her bum all the way off the floor.

Another child stepped in the way, but I almost caught her here.
And then she saw me with the camera, and started trying to come toward me. She doesn't know that she doesn't know how to crawl, so she just leans on over and tries to take off. I know that it's just a matter of time until she's crawling AND pulling up!!

So this weekend, I started changing out all of her toys. It's time to put the little baby toys and rattles and bouncy seats away and pull out the BIG guns. I've picked up some good toys at yardsales this summer, so Saturday afternoon I started getting them all cleaned up and ready for her. She was in heaven! I plopped her down in the middle of the living room floor and just kept cleaning new toys and putting them down for her. It was SO fun to watch her!

Clay was out and about, so I was home alone with Lila. She took a good nap, and when she woke up, I went in to get her. I picked her up, and started straightening up some things in her bedroom. After a couple minutes, I noticed that she was wet, and had peed out of her clothes in the bed. Of course, by the time I noticed it, my shirt was wet with pee, too. So I sat her in her crib to finish cleaning up so that I could get her changed. I looked over, and this is what I saw.
That stinker had pulled up onto her knees in the crib!! I panicked and did the only logical thing a mother could do in such a dangerous situation- I snapped a pic with my cell phone, and then grabbed the camera! Ha!!

I shot Clay a text message with the picture, and a note that said we MUST lower the crib mattress NOW! My phone went dead after that, so I ran in the bedroom and put it on the charger while I went back and started stripping Lila down to give her a bath. Of course, as soon as she was completely naked, the phone started ringing in the other room. So I scooped her up and ran to the bedroom and talked to Clay about what his mischievous daughter had done. While I was standing there, Lila PEED all the way down my shirt and pants, and soaked MY bed! OH MY!! All I could do was laugh at this point. I went back to her room and got her naked wet booty sat down on the changing table, and leaned down to get a washcloth from under the changing table. I stood back up, and she had leaned herself all the way over, and her head was peering off the side of the table at me! About one more inch and she would have toppled off the table! I almost died! I've worked in child care for almost 20 years, and have warned uncountable people to NEVER leave a child on the table because you just never know, but I just didn't expect her to do that! Lesson learned!!!!!!!

Then TODAY.... (no, I'm really not done yet!) Lila was playing with all of her new toys in the living room when she toppled over forward reaching for a toy. It still surprises her a bit when she does that, but all I could do was laugh. She calmed down quickly, and then....She sat herself back up!! I couldn't believe it! Clay saw it too, or I might not have believed she did it! What in the world is going on with all of this development???

So..... Let's recap. As of this week, Lila is
- leaning forward trying to crawl
- pulling up to her knees
- going from laying on her belly to sitting up
- scooting all over the place
- taking big girl baths
Yup, we finally retired our beloved bath bucket. She still fit in it, but it was getting REALLY hard to reach behind and under her to wash the bum, so I finally gave up. As you can tell from these photos, she HATED having the whole tub to splash and play in. Yeah, RIGHT!
I am seriously overwhelmed by all of this!! Clay and I worked our TAILS off today. We went to Babies R Us and got a baby gate. Now that Lila is on the cusp of mobility, it's time to batten down the hatches and babyproof the house. Clay got the gate installed at the top of the steps to the basement. We also started a major overhaul in the basement. We want to make a fun little play area for Lila in the basement so she'll have a good place for all of her antics. We're trying to clear out a big area that was previously storage for her new playset I got off Craigslist. Uncle Andy and Aunt B are very generously giving us one of their retired couches to put down there, and Clay has big plans to get the cable run down so we can have some tv as well. Hopefully by the time we're cooped up for the winter, we'll have a decent play area down there.

I'm going to stop typing now, because I'm exhausted from just THINKING about all we did today!!